Shortwave and other radio stuff

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>>56584158
why is this shit so expensive?

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>>56584158
Was thinking about making this thread after a few anon's mentioned /swl/ in the /bst/ threads.

Just got a little tecsun 310, nothing special, but I catch some get middle eastern broadcasts and enjoy the Chinese English language broadcasts. Nice chirpy American accents. Heh.

The 310 is enough for me atm but I would like to dip my toes into SSB in the near future.

What's your set up?

>>56584496
My set cost me ~£30

>>56584496
>why is this shit so expensive?

Budget shortwave radios aren't that much. I've seen some portable radios under $20 on eBay.

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>>56584658
Should have resized the image...

Is there a short wave radio that can do DRM and DAB+ as well?

What's the point of this if you're a non-religious english speaker?

http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/m.html

Shortwave is fucking dead. There's nothing interesting anymore. The only reason I still keep my radio is because AM dxing is fun.

>>56584926
Good site. I like having a physical set for when I'm abroad or afk for a while.

>>56584974
A SDR dongle with a Raspberry Pi or similar will also do the trick.

>>56584658
Wew lad what's your laptop? Looks comfy.

>>56584158
I just received a Tecsun PL-680. Spent all day and most of the night listening to shortwave and the hams on 40m and Co. Great reception and received loads of signals. Intend to do the same tonight.

I had a Grundig 750 but sold it, regrettably. Naturally it's jacked up $100+ in price since.

I also regularly listen to UTwente's SDR.

Found any numbers stations yet??

>>56585548
I'm ignorant, does that need the internet? I am often away from any form of an internet connection.

>>56584967
>Shortwave is fucking dead

I don't know. Some of these government-maintained international propaganda stations are pretty entertaining. Plenty of Latin music... occasionally interspersed with reports about how much U.S. foreign policy sucks.

>>56585789
thinkpad x61

Best computer I have ever owned. It's not breaking any speed records but handles all my day to day need like a champ. A comfy, comfy champ.

>>56586745
For some reason I find it makes the world feel a little bigger.

Here in the UK I pick up some great music from the middle east. I am sure my neighbors are a little worried about how regularly the Quran is being blared from my balcony though.

>tune into shortwave
>alex jones
>6 stations of literal christian brainwashing
>radio havana in spanish
>ching chong

Sadly there is nothing cool to tune into in my area. Then again I am using an rtl-sdr with a shitty antenna. Can't even pick up the time stations.

>>56584658
>no SSB

>>56586858
I know, I bought the 310 without realising, but am happy enough to not have to buy another radio for the time being.

How much I am I actually missing out on?

>>56584891
Listening to China.
Korean Radio is comfy though.

Thinking of buying a Sangean ATS-909X, are they any good?

I mostly use shortwave for the propaganda stations nowadays e.g. VoK or CRI, only really interesting thing on shortwave anymore for a non-religious person.

>>56586146
The SDR dongle does not need internet. Just connect using USB to a small computer and you are good to go.

You can even do radio direction finding with some extra work.

>>56587086
Which dongle? The £5 RTLSDR is only from about 22Mhz onwards, useless for shortwave

>>56587131
The newer dongle on the rtl-sdr blog can go down to 500mhz

>>56586901
Most if not all amateur radio transmissions. I can understand if that's not your jig but a radio feels kinda circumcised without SSB. I'm still thinking about buying it. Got anything cheap with SSB? Thanks, anon.

>>56587184
>>56587131
You mean kHz? Also, that's only with the direct sampling mod and you need to do some very fucky soldering for that. Tbh I just bought the finished unit from AliExpress for around fiddy bux, listening to SW on it atm.

>>56587585
Sorry kHZ. The direct sampling mod is done in the factory and goes through the antenna. Check it out.

>>56587768
Sauce on that, please? Stock RTLSDR's have direct sampling (it's in the driver) but you have to solder an antenna to the pin (which is what the chinese have done on AliExpress).

>>56587852
Go to the rtlsdr website. The v3 dongles are fairly decent at it. An up converter is still the best option, however.

>>56587936
Are you talking about the ThumbNet RTLSDR? I couldn't find anything besides modified RTLSDR's.

I used to own a ccradio-sw but I don't know where it is. I moved a bunch of times and keep losing my shit. I really want to buy a Tecsun PL-880.

I had so much fun with it when I was living in the Philippines. The SW stuff was fun, got to catch a couple Korean numbers stations and similar stuff. Had lots of fun with AM dxing too. One time I caught firedrake jamming a report about a PRC communist party conference on a Taiwanese AM station. That was a real highlight because usually on SW firedrake just constantly jams freqs but you could hear it start at the beginning of the story then stop when it ended.

So I want to end with the advice that if you get a great radio like that don't let your fun end with SW. It's not exciting at all times of the day. FM and AM dxing are not to be neglected. AM is the easiest, the barrier of entry is so low, you just wait for the sun to go down and you can DX with anything, even a shitty alarm clock radio. Don't want to do it in a place with too much electrical shit around though.

>>56587998
no get these sdrs
>inb4 shill
no they are great for the price

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-dvb-t-dongles/

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>>56588686
>shill
well this IS /g/ after all
>24$
well fuck me really hard, I just threw 50$ on pic related. Thanks for making me feel bad >:^(

>>56584158
yup, i have several shortwave (HF) radios

i have a TenTec RX320, a AKD Target R3. i have a couple of RTL-SDR dongles, and an SDRPlay that beats the dongles, and a Sangean 909x, i am thinking about the CommRadio-CR-1a or the RFSpace CloudIQ, the CR1a dont require a computer, but the CloudIQ has better spectrum display and waterfall, i am still trying to make up my mind to buy one or the other (CR1a or CloudIQ)

/g/ has too many generals as it is, but I wonder if there's room for a regular thread on radio electronics. (Do we have one already?)

Maybe someone more versed in the subject could come up with something.

>>56588722
yea those are some cheap chinese sdr that have a lot of noise afaik how is the SNR? and general opinion of it ?

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>>56589735
>cheap chinese SDR's
They are just RTLSDR's with an antenna input soldered to the Q branch. If they're shitty, that's because of the R820T.

Here's the current state of it, listening to some greek station it seems. I'm from southern europe and can barely get the UZB-6 on my random wire. I still can't form a general opinion on it since I can't into antennae. I don't want to diss the radio for the shitty reception and realize it was just my random wire that wasn't long enough or something. They work just like regular RTLSDR's but with direct sampling, nothing too special, I just wish I heard more. What antenna are you employing, anon?

The real question is what would Review Brah use?

>>56584158
Radio Shack DX-390 with a portable long wire.

I no longer broadcast. Let my ham license expire long ago because there's nobody worth talking to here.

Totally not a spy.

>>56584891
It's fun seeing how far away you can listen. Once in a while you pick up the occasional pirate or number station.

Shortwave seems almost pointless in this day and age.

I'm considering 'reclaiming' the old unused frequency of our national shortwave programme and doing illegal broadcasts in DRM mode.

I can throw a QSL in digital form using the MOT slideshow function.

What else would I transmit though?

Mind you, with the right error correction, I'll likely only have like 16kb/s to work with.

Anyone running GNU radio? I've been thinking about getting a cheap SDR from Ali Express to try it out.

>>56590165
I tried it but it was too complex for me. You can still get the SDR and use it with GQRX.

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>>56590165
Are you talking about GNU/Radio or, as I like to call it, GNU plus radio?

If anyone lives in Europe (and Europe tech countries like Australia and Hong Kong), you can use these things to decode DAB Radio with purely free software.

I use dabtools+dablin (so I can record the entire eti stream), but you can use SDR-j which is easier.

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>>56590210
forgot the screenshot

Also, talking about the RTL-SDRs.
I was lucky enough to get on the bandwagon early, so I have an e4000 based stick.

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>>56590261
http://overcomerministry.org/radio-schedule/
To all listeners, some funny religious guy talking about trannies and commies on 7780 and other. Broadcasting from US.

>>56590119
It only seems pointless because you live in the first world. It's also valuable for tuning into stations from places effectively cut off from the world, like Cuba or North Korea. It's fun as a hobby but it has real benefits for people in very remote places.

>>56590443
Yeah that's the same freq as Alex Jones. That guy is infinitely more entertaining than him though. During the day the only shit I could hear was him, other Christian broadcasts, WWV, CHU Canada, etc.

If you're a newfag in the US here's a tip, if you want to figure out what band is active at any time of the day just check WWV. 5mhz, 10mhz, 15mhz, whichever one is the loudest just scan around it.

>>56591187
I'm the anon from southern europe and I didn't know about WWV. I'll still keep that in mind, maybe it reaches here? By the way, do you or any other anon know what is the cheapest all-band shortwave radio I can buy. Just wondering how much did the chinese lower their prices, heh.

>>56591299
I recommend checking this site: http://anon-co.com/ seller has a good reputation.

WWV probably reaches Europe but it's most likely a lot weaker there. In the Philippines occasionally I could hear WWVH but it would be super weak and buried under BPM (China)

>>56591321
Huh, I usually shop from AliExpress, eBay, BangGood and such sites but I'll have a look around this one in the morning. Thanks, anon! Hopefully a nice HF radio will have better sensitivity than my direct sampling RTLSDR.

>>56591364
Reason this one has a good rep is because the seller always gives radios with the latest firmware revision and also has decent shipping.

>>56591380
Seller ships from china or from the US? I have not once in my life seen rational shipping from the land of the free and it was always like 50 burgerbux or more.

>>56591472
From China.

>>56591480
Wonderful! I have to mention that this is some light speed posting there, anon. Slow down

>>56591494
It's a combination of 4chan pass and actually getting a good signal from my neighbor's wifi for once.

>>56591508
I really don't want to derail so I'll stop responding after this but hell
>paying for pass
>not paying for internet
W-why?

Any ideas how to improve the MW and SW reception on a VX-8DR?
Standing on a hill in Vermont, I could barely get SW stations in maine, and I was getting S5 for a 1000 watt AM station a quarter mile away.

>>56591527
>Reliable internet
>4chan

Priorities.

Any other hams here?

I feel like there's a disconnect between the ham type electronics community and places like /g/.

>>56591527
My mom pays the internet bill. She always pays late. We're facing a mini financial crisis in this household at the moment, I had to withdraw $400 of my own money so she could get the electric turned back on. They ask a deposit when you pay late and she did like she always does. I'll be living in my own place starting October 1st so hopefully I can put this behind me. Until then I'm taking advantage of a stolen comcast password and the xfinitywifi hotspot they create on their customer's wifi enabled modems without asking for permission. They actually ask for $6 a day to use this crap if you're not a Comcast customer lol. Biggest load of shit ever, charging you money then trying to make money off your electricity and property location without giving you any discount.

>>56591556
Here! I don't think revealing the callsign would be smart but yeah, had my license for a year or so but have only been working on my UV-B5 and my club's stations. Getting those 40m dipoles is a fucked up thing when you're living in a crowded city.

>>56591569
FYI you can use as many of the "complimentary passes" as you want, as log as you change your MAC address each time.

Hope things get better for you.

>>56591596
I've got one of those chink HTs too, I'm in CO Springs and it really shines when you hit the repeater on top of the mountain.

>>56591641
Yeah I used to do that awhile back. I did it to get unlimited new ip addresses to do something that definitely isn't ban evasion while my actual connection was still working fine. It's a lot easier to use this guy's password and authenticate every device I have with it. Before the xfinitywifi on my modem got disabled somehow I was watching streaming TV and everything with it. Once you auth a mac it stays authed pretty much forever but each account has a limit of 20 devices. Once you hit that you'll get a message asking you to deauth some of the macs on your account. I definitely didn't learn that evading bans either.

>>56591656
Chinks rock, just got my friend to order his UV-B5 for airsoft. Regarding repeater usage, it's cool and all - I too have two local repeaters but the crowd just... People are kinda boring. There are like 20 of them who are active and I get the feeling it's like a closed circle of people who are there often and know each other well. I came to ham radio originally because of my interest in DX and in digital signal transmission that's not over internet. Old hams talking about their transceivers, antennae, medication or some boring local events ain't my jig.

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This review helped me a lot set up my SDR. I can receive local plane signals from pretty damn far away.

>>56587556
From what I have seen, and I havn't looked too hard yet, is that the tecsun sets with SSB start at ~£90 mark.

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>>56591556
Extra here.